Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
The Un-Stepford Reality- darn writing classes
Gabrielle Calcaterra
The Un- Stepford Reality
As part of our final in my human relations class, we had to write a five year plan for what we hoped to accomplish. I remember fantasizing of owning my own restaurant, living in some far off place and starting a family. Newsflash, this was nearly seven years ago and none of those things happened.
Coincidently, two weeks before I could register for classes that spring quarter, my parents informed me that I would need to pay half my tuition. I had been living on * "Broke Food" for months and didn't have that kind of scratch lying around. My memory of that conversation is pretty fuzzy, but I must have informed my mother of my situation because she took pity on me, allowing me to move home for a while to pay off the credit card that I had been using to purchase youth bus passes and supplement my meager wages at the restaurant to make rent.
* "Broke Food" - a ratatouille of sorts with lots of garlic, mushrooms and corn, that can be served with pasta or thinned out for soup. One big pot usually lasts far longer that I can stand to eat the same meal for, usually about a week or so. This costs about $7-10 to make, including a $2.50 five pound bag of pasta and/or top ramen to mix it up a bit. I've always been far too proud to apply for food stamps; instead I make the sacrifice and live very modestly from time to time.
The plan changed...drastically. I enrolled in culinary school in order to gain useful skills and make contacts to obtain a better paying job, I would have never expected there to be so much struggle involved. Years would pass and I still hadn't gone back to school, I finally gave in to the fact that I will never make much more than minimum wage and possibly some tips in a restaurant. Around the time I made the decision to find a new job, my younger sister tells us she's pregnant, then a year later my brother and his girlfriend (with twins!). That was it, I knew that I didn't want that fate for myself - a drastic change was in order.
Genetically predisposed to be a collector, I tried to fight the urge by purging: kitchen appliances to friends and my siblings, art supplies to the children's art museum downtown, the rest to Goodwill. The guy at their donation center asked me more than once if I was getting rid of a bad roommate, I was tempted to tell him yes - myself. What I did I keep filled four plastic tubs, which were stashed in the crawl space at my parents’ house. One bin with nice clothing, the second full of books, another with cds and a few movies and the last with yarn and some expensive watercolor supplies, slowly acquired over the years as I could afford them. For years my mother had been trying to talk me into joining the military, telling me stories of people she knew who it had changed for the better. Maybe it would do wonders for me, make me less shy – and it was free, so I decided to at least give it a shot.
I packed a small duffel bag with toiletries and boarded one plane after another, bouncing around the country and finally arriving in Columbia, South Carolina. I had only heard of this place in books and movies, but I was stationed there for basic training. Pictures of nearby Myrtle Beach lead me to expect something strange, foreign I guess. Really, the town surrounding Ft Jackson didn't look that different from the valley near the town I grew up in, only there were beach grasses that seemed very out of place that far inland, and the pale sand that surrounded the cookie cutter buildings we were hurried between like cattle; everything was very concrete and seventies style, oak veneer and brown berber carpet covered every vertical surface.
The next couple of months were a blur of sorts. Scars on my elbows and knees from crawling around in the desert remind me of day to day events and disasters documented for posterity in handwritten letters that I sent daily to my family back in Washington. Afternoons spent hand scrubbing linoleum floors of the portable classroom the fifty of us women called home for ten weeks provided plenty of fodder to write home about. Though communication was better when basic training was over and I had my phone and access to the internet while I was stationed at Ft Sam Houston for medic training, I still felt very disconnected from my family. Missing summer barbeques, holidays and the birth of my nephew was not my intention. I shipped presents home hoping alleviate my homesickness let everyone know I hadn't forgotten about them. Although I missed my family terribly, I couldn't go back to living in Spokane. Moving back home would have been too easy; leaving the house was like attending a high school reunion. I had joined the military to make a change in my life, so after scouring the internet and comparing rent prices and local activities, I decided on Portland; it was close Seaside where my family used to vacation and I could put my knitting obsession to use during the mild winters. Assigned to the Seattle Armory, I would be able to commute for monthly drills and maybe squeeze in some shopping as a bonus.
I spent four days in Spokane after flying home from San Antonio after our AIT (Advanced Individual Training) graduation. In my experience, that is the amount of time I can spend at my parents house before they forget I'm an adult with a job and start assigning me chores and asking where I am heading. Loading the pickup truck borrowed from my father to transport my few belongings south to Oregon, I didn't even consider staying a bit longer, visiting my niece and nephews that I hadn't seen since Christmas. An exciting life was waiting six hours south, and a few snow flurries weren't going to deter me.
It has been eight months since that move; I've ditched the roommate that I was convinced would make it cheaper to live here (it didn't) and found a walkup apartment with large closets to stash my treasures, but still something is lacking. I really should have waited longer to go back to the job I was on leave from. It really isn't as fun, or even tolerable as I remember. I really thought that I would have accomplished more. It's hard to even look check Facebook, nine out of ten people I graduated with are married and most of them have kids. The most I can really lay claim to is that I escaped the black hole that is our hometown and have never received welfare benefits.
Maybe there was just too much "Stepford", not enough reality in my expectation of what my life would be like at twenty-six. My aunts and uncles had married fairly young - so I never expected to be this close to thirty with a yarn collection and not so much as a goldfish as a housemate. Each of my closest siblings (both younger) have a pair of kids, and I'm starting to wonder what the family says about me when I'm not there. About three years ago, shortly after my niece was born, I was at a baby shower with my mother and a bunch of her friends. Over mimosas on a Saturday afternoon, they were talking about their children. I just happened to be within ear shot when one of them motioned toward me, coincidently holding said niece, and they asked my mother when I was going to have kids already. I don't remember the exact quote, but her response was something to the effect of, I had some time, but my parents were going to start badgering me about it before too long.
My mother was the queen of casseroles when we were growing up, but there were some things that she didn't have time for raising us rambunctious four of us – from her I learned the basics: how to sew on a button, iron a dress shirt and calm a screaming infant Though occasionally I sew a button onto something I have knit, I don't even own an iron and the only babies I'm calming aren't my own. Yes, I am the baby whisperer, a beer in one hand and a formula bottle in the other. Occasionally it seems strange that my two younger siblings have children and I do not, but I have so much more freedom and I travel too often to keep a more than a fern, let alone a toddler.
For now, I occupy a tidy little walk-up apartment filled with handmade items and treasures from my travels. It is kind of nice to have the option to stay up to make jam at night and knit a few rows on a hat, without worrying of waking anyone. I can sleep in and go for a run in the morning. It may be three or four hours into my day before I speak to another human (until I can learn to order coffee by sign language that is). Someday I will have that place with canned fruit and veggies filling the cupboards, wool spilling from the closet and waves lapping at the shore. Until then, this place will do.
The Un- Stepford Reality
As part of our final in my human relations class, we had to write a five year plan for what we hoped to accomplish. I remember fantasizing of owning my own restaurant, living in some far off place and starting a family. Newsflash, this was nearly seven years ago and none of those things happened.
Coincidently, two weeks before I could register for classes that spring quarter, my parents informed me that I would need to pay half my tuition. I had been living on * "Broke Food" for months and didn't have that kind of scratch lying around. My memory of that conversation is pretty fuzzy, but I must have informed my mother of my situation because she took pity on me, allowing me to move home for a while to pay off the credit card that I had been using to purchase youth bus passes and supplement my meager wages at the restaurant to make rent.
* "Broke Food" - a ratatouille of sorts with lots of garlic, mushrooms and corn, that can be served with pasta or thinned out for soup. One big pot usually lasts far longer that I can stand to eat the same meal for, usually about a week or so. This costs about $7-10 to make, including a $2.50 five pound bag of pasta and/or top ramen to mix it up a bit. I've always been far too proud to apply for food stamps; instead I make the sacrifice and live very modestly from time to time.
The plan changed...drastically. I enrolled in culinary school in order to gain useful skills and make contacts to obtain a better paying job, I would have never expected there to be so much struggle involved. Years would pass and I still hadn't gone back to school, I finally gave in to the fact that I will never make much more than minimum wage and possibly some tips in a restaurant. Around the time I made the decision to find a new job, my younger sister tells us she's pregnant, then a year later my brother and his girlfriend (with twins!). That was it, I knew that I didn't want that fate for myself - a drastic change was in order.
Genetically predisposed to be a collector, I tried to fight the urge by purging: kitchen appliances to friends and my siblings, art supplies to the children's art museum downtown, the rest to Goodwill. The guy at their donation center asked me more than once if I was getting rid of a bad roommate, I was tempted to tell him yes - myself. What I did I keep filled four plastic tubs, which were stashed in the crawl space at my parents’ house. One bin with nice clothing, the second full of books, another with cds and a few movies and the last with yarn and some expensive watercolor supplies, slowly acquired over the years as I could afford them. For years my mother had been trying to talk me into joining the military, telling me stories of people she knew who it had changed for the better. Maybe it would do wonders for me, make me less shy – and it was free, so I decided to at least give it a shot.
I packed a small duffel bag with toiletries and boarded one plane after another, bouncing around the country and finally arriving in Columbia, South Carolina. I had only heard of this place in books and movies, but I was stationed there for basic training. Pictures of nearby Myrtle Beach lead me to expect something strange, foreign I guess. Really, the town surrounding Ft Jackson didn't look that different from the valley near the town I grew up in, only there were beach grasses that seemed very out of place that far inland, and the pale sand that surrounded the cookie cutter buildings we were hurried between like cattle; everything was very concrete and seventies style, oak veneer and brown berber carpet covered every vertical surface.
The next couple of months were a blur of sorts. Scars on my elbows and knees from crawling around in the desert remind me of day to day events and disasters documented for posterity in handwritten letters that I sent daily to my family back in Washington. Afternoons spent hand scrubbing linoleum floors of the portable classroom the fifty of us women called home for ten weeks provided plenty of fodder to write home about. Though communication was better when basic training was over and I had my phone and access to the internet while I was stationed at Ft Sam Houston for medic training, I still felt very disconnected from my family. Missing summer barbeques, holidays and the birth of my nephew was not my intention. I shipped presents home hoping alleviate my homesickness let everyone know I hadn't forgotten about them. Although I missed my family terribly, I couldn't go back to living in Spokane. Moving back home would have been too easy; leaving the house was like attending a high school reunion. I had joined the military to make a change in my life, so after scouring the internet and comparing rent prices and local activities, I decided on Portland; it was close Seaside where my family used to vacation and I could put my knitting obsession to use during the mild winters. Assigned to the Seattle Armory, I would be able to commute for monthly drills and maybe squeeze in some shopping as a bonus.
I spent four days in Spokane after flying home from San Antonio after our AIT (Advanced Individual Training) graduation. In my experience, that is the amount of time I can spend at my parents house before they forget I'm an adult with a job and start assigning me chores and asking where I am heading. Loading the pickup truck borrowed from my father to transport my few belongings south to Oregon, I didn't even consider staying a bit longer, visiting my niece and nephews that I hadn't seen since Christmas. An exciting life was waiting six hours south, and a few snow flurries weren't going to deter me.
It has been eight months since that move; I've ditched the roommate that I was convinced would make it cheaper to live here (it didn't) and found a walkup apartment with large closets to stash my treasures, but still something is lacking. I really should have waited longer to go back to the job I was on leave from. It really isn't as fun, or even tolerable as I remember. I really thought that I would have accomplished more. It's hard to even look check Facebook, nine out of ten people I graduated with are married and most of them have kids. The most I can really lay claim to is that I escaped the black hole that is our hometown and have never received welfare benefits.
Maybe there was just too much "Stepford", not enough reality in my expectation of what my life would be like at twenty-six. My aunts and uncles had married fairly young - so I never expected to be this close to thirty with a yarn collection and not so much as a goldfish as a housemate. Each of my closest siblings (both younger) have a pair of kids, and I'm starting to wonder what the family says about me when I'm not there. About three years ago, shortly after my niece was born, I was at a baby shower with my mother and a bunch of her friends. Over mimosas on a Saturday afternoon, they were talking about their children. I just happened to be within ear shot when one of them motioned toward me, coincidently holding said niece, and they asked my mother when I was going to have kids already. I don't remember the exact quote, but her response was something to the effect of, I had some time, but my parents were going to start badgering me about it before too long.
My mother was the queen of casseroles when we were growing up, but there were some things that she didn't have time for raising us rambunctious four of us – from her I learned the basics: how to sew on a button, iron a dress shirt and calm a screaming infant Though occasionally I sew a button onto something I have knit, I don't even own an iron and the only babies I'm calming aren't my own. Yes, I am the baby whisperer, a beer in one hand and a formula bottle in the other. Occasionally it seems strange that my two younger siblings have children and I do not, but I have so much more freedom and I travel too often to keep a more than a fern, let alone a toddler.
For now, I occupy a tidy little walk-up apartment filled with handmade items and treasures from my travels. It is kind of nice to have the option to stay up to make jam at night and knit a few rows on a hat, without worrying of waking anyone. I can sleep in and go for a run in the morning. It may be three or four hours into my day before I speak to another human (until I can learn to order coffee by sign language that is). Someday I will have that place with canned fruit and veggies filling the cupboards, wool spilling from the closet and waves lapping at the shore. Until then, this place will do.
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